The Relocation of Culture is about accents and borders—about people and cultures that have accents and that cross borders. It is a book that deals with translation and nomadic identities, and with the many ways in which the increasing relevance of forced migrations has affected the practice of languages and the understanding of cultures in our times. Simona Bertacco and Nicoletta Vallorani examine the theoretical and practical nexus of translation and migration, two of the most visible and anxiety-producing keywords of our age, and use translation as the method for a global cultural theory firmly based in the humanities, both as creative output and interdisciplinary scholarship. Positioning their work within the field of translation studies with important borrowings from literary and cultural studies, visual and migration studies, the authors suggest a theory of translation that makes space for complexity, considers different “languages” (words, images, sounds, bodies), and takes into account both our emotional, pre-linguistic and instinctual reaction to the other as an invader and an enemy and the responsibility for the other that lies at the heart of translation. This process necessarily involves a reflection on the location and relocation of cultures in contemporary times. “The book successfully articulates translation as a vital principle of our cultural life and as an act of locating ourselves in the world by acknowledging at the same time the plurality of our languages and the complexities of our migratory processes.” ― Iperstoria “In this timely volume, Simona Bertacco and Nicoletta Vallorani approach the relationship between translation and migration from an original perspective. Building on scholarship in translation studies, world literature and postcoloniality, they discuss translation as both a practice and an interpretative tool or mode of reading. Their examination of contemporary literary and artistic production from the US and the Mediterranean offers illuminating insights on translation as a 'border discipline' and also on the crucial role occupied by the global humanities within contemporary education.” ― Loredana Polezzi, Alfonse M. D'Amato Chair in Italian American and Italian Studies, Stony Brook University, USA “In this passionate and illuminating dialogue across continents, displacement is a haunting theme. The authors track the migration routes that scar today's globe, showing how these are also paths of language.” ― Sherry Simon, Distinguished University Research Professor, Concordia University, Canada, and author of Translation Sites: A Field Guide “ The Relocation of Culture makes a bold and mature move at the border between languages and places. It hovers there, demonstrating that language itself is strange, precarious, even the “native” languages that seem natural to people who are unfriendly to migration. But Bertacco and Vallorani show that the nature of language is artifice; people on the move know that. It is available for translation, for new accents, and cohabitation with alternative codes. Nativist skeptics should brace themselves before reading; they are in for a certain change of heart.” ― Doris Sommer, Director of Cultural Agents Initiative, Harvard University, USA “Crossing a border often implies an existential risk, as migrants in the Mediterranean Sea and elsewhere in the world know even too well. But it is also a potentially productive act, which relocates bodies and cultures. Employing the theoretical angle of translation, Simona Bertacco and Nicoletta Vallorani work upon this productive dimension of border crossing and migration, both literally and metaphorically, foreshadowing the emergence of a vernacular cosmopolitanism. Working the boundaries of migration, translation, cultural, and postcolonial studies they open up new continents for research as well as for cultural and political activism.” ― Sandro Mezzadra, Professor, Università di Bologna, Italy Simona Bertacco is Professor of Postcolonial and Translation Studies at the University of Louisville, USA, where she teaches courses on the global and translational humanities. Her research focuses on Caribbean literatures, gender and translation studies. Her most recent publications include: The Relocation of Culture: Translation, Migration, Borders, co-authored with Nicoletta Vallorani. Foreword by H. Bhabha. (Bloomsbury 2021), Time, Space, Matter in Translation, co-edited with P. Beattie and T. Soldat-Jaffe (Routledge 2022), and is currently is co-editing the second edition of The Routledge Handbook of Literary Translation (forthcoming in 2027). Nicoletta Vallorani is Professor of English Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Milan, Italy. She has published on colonialism and postcolonialism, on urban geographies and on the intersections between Crime Fiction and Migration Studies. She recently contributed to The Routledge Companion to Crime Fiction (2019). With Simona Bertac